Paul Ryan is about to bang right into the debt ceiling

Can the House speaker survive the same crisis that toppled John Boehner?

Paul Ryan.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

Way back in October 2015, John Boehner gave Paul Ryan a wonderful gift. Boehner, who had announced his resignation as House speaker under threat of eviction by his own Republican majority, wanted to make sure that Ryan, his successor, started his own tenure as smoothly as possible. To grease the skids for Ryan, Boehner worked out a budget agreement with the Obama White House to modestly increase spending and push off the next debt-limit increase until 2017.

At the time, hardline conservatives in the House wanted to hold the debt limit hostage in order to squeeze the White House into accepting spending cuts, which threatened to trigger a default on interest payments for the government's debts. Boehner's own speakership had been crippled by intraparty political fights over these issues, so with one foot out the door he cut a deal with the Democrats to make sure this potential crisis was cleared from Ryan's immediate path.

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Simon Maloy

Simon Maloy is a political writer and researcher in Washington, DC. His work has been published by The Huffington Post, The American Prospect, and Salon.